How Do the Windsors Spend Christmas?

Tonight, Buckingham Palace staffers will celebrate the holiday season with a small office cocktail party and presents from Queen Elizabeth II, who will be gifting wine decanters. Valued around $30, the glass decanters are engraved with the royal EIIR cipher. Maj will make an appearance at the staff reception along with her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and her daughter, the Princess Royal. However, before anyone can start sipping eggnog, the palace will have to scramble to squash rumors that Prince William is being groomed for eminent ascension to the throne by sharing his grandmother's duties as a "Shadow King." Royal aides continue to insist that the leaked financial documents substantiating this claim are merely misinterpreted memos regarding the royals' taxes. In January, the Shadow KingPrince will make his first official overseas visit, heading to New Zealand in the Queen's stead.Tomorrow, the Queen's extended family will alight to the palace for a holiday lunch, allowing the monarch to visit with those unable or uninvited to spend the holiday at her beloved Sandringham Estate in Norfolk this Christmas. In recent years, those in the Queen's inner circle have joined her at the country estate for Christmas, including Prince Philip, Prince Charles, and, by Christmas Eve, Prince Harry and Prince William. However, those hoping for some festive snaps of the British royals in winter recess with be sorely disappointed: the Queen is cracking down on paparazzi intrusiveness in an effort draw a line between acceptable public interest in the royals and downright harassment. After all, the royal Christmas holiday is an intimate occasion, and an invitation to Sandringham is no small matter. In 2005, following Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall's wedding to the Prince of Wales, it was considered a rite of passage for Charles's new wife to join the royal family for the holidays. And this year, Kate Middleton will enjoy a very telling first of her own: she's been invited to join the royals at Sandringham on Christmas Day. She'll have missed the unwrapping of presents, however; the Windsors follow German tradition and open gifts on Christmas Eve.

One could argue that Kate dodges a bullet by skipping out on the gift exchange. Buying presents for the royal family is notoriously challenging, as they apparently frown on expensive gifts in favor of thoughtfully humorous jokes gifts. (Prince Charles favorite present is said to have been a leather toilet-seat cover.) If he's feeling particularly jocular this year, perhaps Prince William will send singer Pink a fox stole for Christmas. The PETA-proud singer recently called the Prince "a redneck" for his involvement in foxhunting.